Virginia Legislator Plans To Propose Barring Gays From National Guard Service

Conservative Virginia state legislator Bob Marshall is raising a new kind of constitutional issue by his plans to introduce legislation in the Virginia legislature's House of Delegates that would ban gays from serving in the Virginia National Guard.  WTOP News reported yesterday that the move comes in response to Congress' recent passage of a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Critics say that the National Guard is a federal military unit and that federal law would override any state limitation.  However Del. Marshall argues that states would never have ratified the U.S. Constitution if they did not retain unqualified control of their militias.